I never miss an opportunity to make the point that Security and Privacy are the two big challenges for IoT, and that privacy is the bigger one. Security problems can be fixed since we accept apologies and forget rapidly. Was it billions of accounts Yahoo? Privacy issues are different since it is about trust and without a proper architecture no service can cope with new requirements on privacy.

Most people respond along the lines of “I have nothing to hide” or “that’s the way people are these days”. But people living in countries where they don’t trust the government have a completely different point of view. In most western countries we have quite tough policies about what you can ask people in interviews for employment. But given the data available to employers today (provided from users by signature!) combined with data analytics, they already know much more than you can imagine, so they don’t need to ask.

This is the naive era and it will come to an end, soon! Your personal data is yours and you should only give it away if you think it is a good idea! And many organisations are equally naive today! Critical data has to be kept safe! Web services for IPR management might not be a good idea for example. At least not unless you know where the servers (and their backups) are.

The only architecture I know of today which can support future requirements on privacy, is that users own their data and opt in to share it. I’m working with Springworks in the automotive industry today. In our company, enabling mobile operators to connect cars, the owners of the cars own the data generated in the car and they opt in to insurance companies, road side assistance companies etc to get some of their data. Car manufacturers typically argue that they own the data.

Here is a good example of what will drive new requirements on privacy – a report from Democratic Media on how wearables are used to collect and sell health data. Is this something we want? I don’t think so. Consumers and enterprises will raise new requirements, and governments will follow with legislation. Proper architectures for privacy and trusted partners will be kings.

After the Billions-of-devices-hype came even bigger numbers on the Big Data opportunity. It’s obviously so that being able to gather and analyse huge amount of data from different sources gives interesting opportunities for both good and bad guys. And the big number game always works: if airlines save 1% cost it’s a huge amount of money. Or if rescue shows up at car accidents a minute earlier on average we save many lives and loads of pain and money. If people on the planet save a minute a day on their way to work we would create mountains of time to be used for something fantastic. We have left the Billions and talk Trillions now.

Let’s come back to the view that enormous shared data power in the cloud is the only way forward. We’ve heard it before. It all started with IBM’s mighty mainframes in the core and 3270 terminals in the edge. Computing was only about central expensive machines until Apple turned it all upside down with the first personal computer. And ever since have IT managers and others had to struggle with the balance between edge and core. At 3Com we invented Ethernet and argued power to the edge. Why send data outside the office if it’s internal and only to be shared between people in the office? It’s at least not safer and what if connection to the center is lost? It has been going on like this, back and forth, Thin Clients with all power in the core was really the future for a while and most recently employees started bring their own, rarely thin, devices to work.

There is definitely a lot of economies of scale to run things from the center. But innovation often comes from the edge. That’s why we have regional and local governments for example. Culture, climate, economy, religion, desire and everything else differs from place to place, company to company, human to human.

Coming back to Big Data and IoT. First of all, IoT is most often small data, and little or no velocity, variation and all the other V’s that Big Data is supposed to deal with. Secondly, in many applications we need to make really quick decisions down there at the floor, in the edge. A home care solution which tries to identify when a person living there is about to get stroke, requires a thorough understanding of that individual, constant monitoring and learning and very rapid and correct alarms when something is about to go wrong. A retailer who need to put the new pasta somewhere need to make that decision now. With real-time support for that decision it will be a better one than without.

I believe a new wave of distributed AI applications within self-learning systems will be a really important part of the Internet of Everything. Keep an eye at companies like our THINGS member Aifloo and Imagimob, both developing AI capable edge devices for industrial, healthcare, retail and energy markets. These clever devices with their own sensors built-in, might even make it possible to avoid further integration into larger equipment to provide applications requested.

History repeats itself. Social robots have appeared in books and movies for years and always felt far out. But all of a sudden they say hello to you! I participated in a panel at Digital Health Days in Stockholm and one of the speakers was a blue Giraff with the avatar of their CEO Stephen von Rump, present in Saint Lewis, Missouri. They have been developing their social robot focusing on home care. It can sit, stand, talk, nod, move etc, and in our case it was Stephen’s face and voice talking to us. In their concept the Giraff becomes the gateway for all sensors and devices needed in a particular home as well as for all service providers involved including family and friends. Today the price for a Giraff is in the ball park of 10K$ but Stephen mentioned there is more to be done on the hardware.

It is easy to just reject the idea of using social robots but given the huge global challenge to provide desired care given the resources available I am convinced careful and clever use of social robots is one of the core components of care 2.0. Needless to say I’m glad we have Robotdalen here in Sweden!

What a wonderful idea: a cute teddy bear full of sensors to track vital signs of the kid who is playing with it. Vulnerable babies will be measured and monitored without being bothered. And even better, the data collected will be more accurate than when they are bothered by a nurse or doctor. As well as taking measurements, nurses and parents can also communicate with their children remotely by playing songs and recording bedtime stories through the toy.Two master students from Zagreb, Croatia, Josipa Majic and Ana Burica, came up with the idea and their joint baby, Little Teddy the Guardian, is now for sale at 169 EUR. He keeps an eye on health parameters like heart rate, oxygen saturation, body temperature, and stress levels. The idea behind disguising medical tech in a lovable toy is to provide pediatricians as well as parents with more accurate, consistent and reliable data points that will give a meaningful and complete insight in the child’s health condition. Every time a child takes Teddy The Guardian by the hand or puts Teddy’s paw on his forehead sensors detect the values, capture them and transmit in real-time to a mobile app where data is analyzed, visualized, managed and downloaded by the medical staff and parents.

I can see a lot of applications where sensors embedded in something else could open new possibilities and opportunities.

I had the opportunity to attend a lunch with Kevin Kelly last Thursday. Kevin was co-founder of Wired magazine in January 1993 and served as Executive Editor from September 1992 to January 1999. In 2009 Kevin Launched The Quantified Self movement with Gary Wolf and today there are some 200 QS groups. QS Stockholm was founded in April 2012 and we are 253 members by now. QS is covering all aspects of people’s desire to measure themselves. It’s interesting and fun to explore this area but for me it is more than so: it is a key component of Healthcare 2.0.

People challenge healthcare – There are more of us, we live longer and we have better tools. The results are increasingly constrained healthcare resources and more knowledgable individuals. Our objectives must be drastically improved efficiency and a person-centric healthcare and the way forward is a holistic life-long data-centric approach, leverage of technology and involvement of individuals. Banks were able to outsource many of their tasks to their customers, we shop on the Internet, trade shares and order flight tickets and hotel rooms, so why couldn’t healthcare do something similar?

A person-centric life-long healthcare approach should include wellness, fitness, self-care, healthcare and home care and it is in this context Quantify Self can play a pivotal role. People are already collecting data on themselves, using tools like pen and paper, smartphones, pads and computers. Pew Internet & American Life Project claim 7 in 10 American adults tracks a health indicator like weight, diet, exercise or a symptom. But half say they track “in their heads” and about a fifth use technology. The QS movement can be used as a rich source of innovative self-tracking methods and tools. And it constitutes a great test bench for all kind of real life tests.

Putting easy-to-use tools in the hands of curious people always enable innovation. It is an alternative approach to research which often brings unexpected results. The rewards of progress in the health field are huge regardless if we measure financial savings or increased quality of life. eHealth, mHealth or rather Health is one of the most interesting application areas for M2M solutions.

Mobile World Congress 2013 is over and some 72.000 visitors and 1.700 exhibiting companies have gone home. The new location – Fira Gran Via – was more “professional” and space, logistics, food, etc was better. But on the other hand, it is far away from down town Barcelona which made people spend much more time in the traffic. And at a couple of occasions the traffic turned really bad.

I have obviously not seen everything and met everyone so my conclusions have no trace of science:

The over-all impression was quite boring rather then exciting. Devices, boxes, antennas and software architectures all over the place and the devices really look the same. Is this a sign of commoditization? The very serious fact that Europe is seriously behind in LTE usage (4% of subscribers world-wide acc. to GSA) should make a lot of Europeans nervous. Our entrepreneurs in the European mobile industry might start move to the US like IT entrepreneurs have done for many years.

The value of MWC continues to be the interaction between people from the same industry across the world why parties and sub-events continue to be important. The 5:th Swedish Mobile Association-party on Monday was spectacular again and my job as bouncer was as easy as all previous years.

There is a growing number of visitors and exhibitors from other industries mainly due to M2M. I guess there were 20 more or less connected cars to look at but I also found exhibitors like Assa Abloy with their connected locks in a small both. I believe this increased focus on what to use the mobile network for is a good development – maybe the event should be divided in two: building and operating networks – using networks.

M2M was everywhere but the heavily promoted GSMA Connected Citypart of the event I unfortunately found quite dull. In the far end of Hall 3, few visitors, a lot of screens with presentations and no real energy or “heat” (if we exclude the Gangnam Style dancers from KT). And I couldn’t find anything about OTA provisioning of SIMs which was demonstrated by GSMA last year. Connected cars was clearly the most discussed topic in M2M followed by mHealth. I believe it is a sound development that focus on M2M itself disappears (no customer has ever asked me for M2M) and that we start discuss real problems with real customers. The industry needs to be able to create value for the huge SMB market and not only the multi-nationals, consumers and governments. That is the key challenge for M2M today.

Ericsson’s Key Note event Tuesday night was a highlight: well structured and executed with M2M and Networked Society as a leading theme. And finally Vestberg invited Avicii on stage and then they launched a new song right there, XYOU based on a crowd-sourcing process. The thing I really liked was that they showed the Twitter feed from when Avicii entered the stage and when they played the new song we could see it spreading over the Internet on another huge screen. Well thought through and executed! I’m not sure everyone in the audience understood what was going on but my 17 years old daughter was really impressed already by the SMS I sent her.

My choice of coolest product at the show was also in the Ericsson hall. Under the banner “Windows of Opportunities” they demonstrated four connected windows solving real problems. My favorite was the one for skyscrapers which generates electricity from light coming in. I hope they have solid patents in place!

ABB acquires the Wi-Fi mesh pioneer Tropos Networks to strengthen its Utility Communications product group. California based Tropos Networks has delivered a large number of wireless metropolitan and campus networks over the last ten years or so and I would even say that they made Wi-Fi mesh a viable metro network solution to the market.

This acquisition by ABB is very interesting and underline the grande potential for especially smart grids but also other private network applications. Tropos has deployed private networks for applications like meter reading, ITS, mobile workforce, public safety, telemedicine, parking meters, etc.

M2M is required to solve the efficiency problems, the security issues and the sustainability challenges in the world. And many of these applications will use private networks for financial and/or security reasons. Each of these areas will develop to become ICT systems in the size of the Internet which is why really large global players invest early on. I suggest you keep an eye at GE, ABB, Siemens, IBM and similar players.